Heeding lessons from the players down under

St Augustine had it right - and there's something I don't say often - "the world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page". There's nothing quite like a spell abroad to shine a light onto daily life back home. As you can probably guess, I've been away, in Australia, combining work with a broadcaster's new media team and a holiday. In my absence, Ofcom has published its regular Communications Market Report.

The report covers everything from the fact that almost 73% of UK homes (18.3m) have digital TV and 11.1m have broadband - to the startling (for some) news that 16-24-year-olds watch seven hours less television per week than the average viewer. According to the report, MySpace had 17.3% reach of the internet population in May and the BBC's website was the only one from a broadcaster to make it into the top 20 internet destinations. Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when Ofcom brings computer and console games into the research - then we'll really see the whole market.

But what, I can hear you wondering, has all of this to do with Australia? Well, there are similarities and differences between us Poms and the Aussies. In Australia, there is one dominant telco (Telstra) with a small number of competitors. There's one major public service broadcaster (PSB) - the ABC, also known as Auntie - and one smaller PSB (SBS) and various commercial TV channels, including Seven, Nine and Ten, some of whom have done internet deals with Yahoo and MSN. This is presumably partly because there are stringent rules forbidding cross-media ownership - which are on the verge of being relaxed. But there are only about 1.5m digital TVs - around 18% of homes.

Broadband is also similar but not the same. It looks much more like the UK in the days when 512k was fast and cost more than £300 a year. This is not a state of affairs conducive to burgeoning online content, except that demand among consumers seems to be high and growing if the ABC's statistics on audio and video consumption on its website are any guide. Pay-TV operator Foxtel has a new converged, PVR set-top box coming, much like Sky Plus, so this might shake things up a bit

Overall, this leaves the ABC as the only truly cross-media outfit. As part of this, it has just launched a cross-media project called JTV (TV, online and radio), building on the success of the radio station Triple J - much was made of the fact that this took place in the same week that Top of the Pops was laid to rest. The ABC is isolated as an innovative PSB. There is a major opportunity for the new MD, Mark Scott, to help it to step up to the mark as a cross-media PSB, but it will need resources and funding. The Aussies know that public content comes at a cost and, although they might not watch that much of it on TV, they like to know it's there and a surprising number of them do seek it out online. I'll remember this next time I hear an inspired rant from a commercial player about how online media markets work perfectly and provide all the content anyone could ever need. Go look somewhere with such a market and then look at the ABC. Authenticity, quality and trust can still go a long way.

Australian consumer demand for media services is high and the direction of change from traditional media towards new media seems broadly comparable to the UK - but with politicians in direct control, the process and priorities are different. Most of the heat and noise is about multi-channel digital television, cross-media ownership rules and Telstra, which recently "abandoned" plans to upgrade its network - something BT is well on the way to doing. Of course, Telstra did nothing of the sort, it was just arguing with its main shareholder and regulator (that's the government on both counts) about how much money it should be allowed to charge competitors for accessing it. I prefer Ofcom in the role any day.

So, as Ofcom reviews the complexity of the UK market, and as the BBC advertises for members for the new BBC Trust - take a look down under and have a think. The balance between the old media and innovation is similar to the UK, but slightly more conservative and protectitive of the established players. But among the public, there is a huge demand for interactivity, on-demand media and excellent public service content. There are valiant souls on the other side of the world struggling to come to terms with all this as we are in the UK; there's much to learn from comparing notes.